And My Response...

Gregor-

Let me hit this point-by-point

1) Iraq kicked the inspectors out for three and a half years, and largely stonewalled them in the time they were there before the war. The inspectors would not have been let back in at all if not for the US and Britain taking some action to back up the empty threats and sanctions that a impotent (and might I add, corrupt, if the oil-for-food program was any indication) United Nations.

2) Seeing as a lot of the "insurgents" (I would call them terrorists, as they seem to kill more civilians than anyone else, but let's not get hung up on labels...) come from other countries, I think it would be something of a stretch to call this an "endless civil war." A civil war would be what would happen if the Kurds started fighting the Sunnis or Shiites.

In 1991, Bush Sr. promised US assistance to any Iraqis who would rise up against Saddam, then let the ones who actually did twist in the wind. Because of this, the Iraqis didn't expect us to follow through on our promises to stay the course until they become a nation. There is something admirable in following through on a commitment to a nation to stay until they get on their feet, even if some of us don't think we should be there in the first place...

3) Completely agree with you on the Rumsfeld point. What disturbs me the most about politicians is that most seem to believe that the ends justify the means, and their end (Democrat and Republican alike) is the assumption and continuation of their own power.

4) Europe is free now because millions of people gave their lives in the effort to defeat Hitler, including hundreds of thousands of Americans who might have avoided the war if Roosevelt had remained uninvolved. Blacks in America are free because the Union won the Civil War at a terrible cost. I don't think any population in the world has ever been liberated without a terrible cost in human life attached. Because these people gave their lives, future generations were able to enjoy what our Founding Fathers (who also suffered a terrible cost in many cases) would call the blessings of liberty. I'd like to think that the Iraqis will someday look at this generation of leaders in their country who have courageously worked at great personal peril to build this nation the same way that we look at our Founding Fathers in America.

Two more points -

a) www.iraqbodycount.com put the count in the neighborhood of 25,000 civilian deaths, a little less than half of which were caused by US-led forces. I agree with you that civilian deaths are untenable, and I will not make the argument that the ends justify the means. However, I question the practice of blaming the acts of suicide bombers, criminals, and terrorists on America (more on this later...).

b) You forgot to mention the several thousand US troops who sustained serious injuries from combat. Let's not forget their contributions here...

5) The intelligence that we based our case to the UN on sucked. No argument there.

6) The Madrid train bombings and the London subway bombings were the result of radical Islamic terrorists, of their own free will, choosing to kill hundreds of innocent people in western nations. Though they obviously weren't happy about the Iraq war, they hated America and Western civilization well before the Iraq war, and they will long after. Exactly which bombings would you blame on the Iraq invasion and which bombings would you blame on the Afghan invasion (I'm sure they're not happy about that one either.)? Using this logic, you would have to blame us for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (for invading Iraq the first time), the Embassy Bombings (for our ill-fated involvement in Mogadishu), the USS Cole bombing (for sending a cruise missile to destroy that factory in Sudan), and 9/11 (for sending a cruise missile that almost got Bin Laden). Why not blame us for Munich 1972 and the Beirut marine barracks bombing and be done with it, since terrorists are apparently not responsible for their own actions?

7) I felt the Bush administration was deceptive from the start on the cost of the war, and did not fully consider the question "Can we afford to fight this war and do everything else we want to do without busting the budget for the forseeable future?" Someone in the administration had a pretty good idea what the cost of this war would be (I think Paul O'Neill was one), and these people were either ignored or fired as Bush made his case for this war to the American people. This really bothers me more than the intelligence issues. With the intelligence, at least there was data both supporting and calling into question the WMD-based case for war. With the budget, I think the Bush administration intentionally misstated their information, fearing that if the true anticipated cost of the war was known, they would lose much of their support.

Tangental point - they didn't calculate the political cost very well either - if we hadn't gone to war with Iraq, Bush would have won the election in an absolute landslide. Instead, he eked out a win over a candidate that no one really seemed to like. But I digress...

8) My biggest problem with the Bush White House - bringing the fiscal ethic of a sorority girl with a credit card to the federal budget. I enthusiastically voted for Bush in 2000 for a lot of reasons, but the biggest was this - he promised to curb growth in government spending at 4% per annum, which would therefore allow him to keep taxes as low as possible (Keep in mind, I had just started working, and was a little shocked at the amount of taxes taken out of my paycheck each month.). After 9/11, we instantly went from surplus to deficit, which would not be a big deal for a short period of time, but it seemed to me that that would be a good time to keep costs as low as possible, especially when seeking tax cuts to spur an understandably sluggish economy (the result of 9/11 and the bursting of the high-tech bubble). Instead, we increased spending at an irresponsible rate, and then added the Iraq war expense on top of that, which will keep us in deficits through the end of Bush's second term.

That said, I don't know if I agree with you here. What was your point again? It's too late to think right now...

One last observation - the Democratic Minority Leader (Harry Reid) is a pro-Life Mormon. If he runs for President in '08, I would probably vote for him based on my "Any pro-Life Democrat automatically gets my vote" Rule. I may even campaign for the man if he runs and stays true to his convictions...

Hope the Astros can get back on track and win this Wild Card. I give them a 25% chance of doing so. Take care, Gregor.

-Nate